Reviewed by Trevor Kirk

The Messenger Project is the moniker by which a bunch of singers and musi­cians from Garden Grove, California, have decided to unleash themselves on an unsuspecting world. Their declared influences include Cream and Buffalo Springfield and echoes of both Clapton and Richie Furay can be heard in the melodies, all of which were composed by Lionel de Leon; the lyrics, however, are lifted en masse from Scripture. It takes a fait of getting used to, hearing familiar passages from the Bible sung to choppy riffs and driving percussion, and if truth be told, more often than not the music and the words don't fit com­fortably together. But one or two of the songs do come off; "Holy Is His Name" is the Magnificat with hoi axe solos and Carrie Liddell as the Virgin Mary giving it plenty vocally; "Cast Your Bread Upon The Waters" is very Dire Straits; and "Any Dust" is a slow and funky 12-bar blues complete with appropriately wail­ing lead guitar from Dan Waterman, and the vocals coming over like Glenn Kaiser. There's some items in Spanish for added variety, but with so few songs really hilting the spot, a potentially interesting concept doesn't really catch fire. Pity.

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